The Faster Than Light Issue

a reply to: Peeple

I thought it had already been established that for long-distance space travel (light years) by human beings to occur (unless in a hypothetical suspended state), space-time would *have* to be manipulated as to allow a "shortcut" to the light year problem.

And this doesn't even factor the inability of humans to survive long term in space. Our bodies are not designed for it. Our bodies degenerate at zero gravity.

originally posted by: zatara
a reply to: Peeple

It is all quite simple..if you'd ask me. The speed of light is the fastest speed we can measure and have built absolutes around them. Which is of course obstructing your own progress in science. With this discovery of entenglement there is an confirmation of what is possible in nature. Maybe it has nothing to do with speed or time...but with something we are still to understand. We have been practising science for some ...lets say 3500 years.. and now have the arrogance to think we know it all, especially the most valueable equation of physics? Don't think so...it will take us sometime to figure it all out..if we will have to do it all by ourselves.

Talk about arrogance. You want to think you know about relativity but the above shows you are almost completely ignorant of the subject.
See, entanglement involves the instantaneous transfer of specific quantum state information.
If you pause for a moment, you might realize that the speed of light limit applies waves/particles, not information.

Also, the only people that "think we know it all" are straw men generated for internet forum fools to argue with.

Harte

originally posted by: tarifa37
What happens if you have a ship that can travel at the speed of light and someone from the back of the spaceship walks to the front.. they would now be exceeding the speed of light . So what would happen to them.? because if it's impossible to exceed the speed of light would you be stopped from walking from the back of the spacecraft to the front whilst travelling at the speed of light ?

Velocities aren't additive in the way they appear to be when they are at normal rates we experience every day.

Read about this here.

Harte

a reply to: moebius

Speed of light is only an issue for direct communication. It is not an issue for interstellar or even intergalactic travel.

What ?
I know there is a punchline to that.
Mind letting us know ?

originally posted by: blueman12
a reply to: moebius

Why focus science and engineering on only our current understanding of reality.

Our science and engineering is based on our current understanding of reality. I am not sure what you want them to focus on.

Im sure in 100 years people will be saying, "can you believe they wanted to send people in rocketships to travel to other galaxies".

I doubt that.

originally posted by: Gothmog
a reply to: moebius

Speed of light is only an issue for direct communication. It is not an issue for interstellar or even intergalactic travel.

What ?
I know there is a punchline to that.
Mind letting us know ?

You somehow missed the rest of my post?

originally posted by: FyreByrdYour hypothetical 1g acceleration for 28 years is what is nonsense in physical terms. If you meant to say something different, please do.

How exactly is it "nonsense in physical terms"? Please elaborate.

originally posted by: tarifa37
What happens if you have a ship that can travel at the speed of light and someone from the back of the spaceship walks to the front.. they would now be exceeding the speed of light . So what would happen to them.? because if it's impossible to exceed the speed of light would you be stopped from walking from the back of the spacecraft to the front whilst travelling at the speed of light ?

Speed of light is the same in all inertial frames. So on board of the spaceship you would not notice any difference. An external observer not moving with the ship (being in a different frame of reference) would see the lights on the ship blue/red shifted.

originally posted by: Liquesence
a reply to: Peeple

I thought it had already been established that for long-distance space travel (light years) by human beings to occur (unless in a hypothetical suspended state), space-time would *have* to be manipulated as to allow a "shortcut" to the light year problem.

And this doesn't even factor the inability of humans to survive long term in space. Our bodies are not designed for it. Our bodies degenerate at zero gravity.

You've got "gravity" as long as you accelerate. You can have linear acceleration, rocket pushing all the time. Or you can also create acceleration through rotational motion.

originally posted by: Archivalist
I subscribe to The Optimum Theory.

E=c^3 for absolute energy value available across space time.
...

Velocity cubed is not energy.

a reply to: tarifa37

LOL....priceless.

www.bing.com...


@27:49 is your lead-in.

originally posted by: Harte

originally posted by: zatara
a reply to: Peeple

It is all quite simple..if you'd ask me. The speed of light is the fastest speed we can measure and have built absolutes around them. Which is of course obstructing your own progress in science. With this discovery of entenglement there is an confirmation of what is possible in nature. Maybe it has nothing to do with speed or time...but with something we are still to understand. We have been practising science for some ...lets say 3500 years.. and now have the arrogance to think we know it all, especially the most valueable equation of physics? Don't think so...it will take us sometime to figure it all out..if we will have to do it all by ourselves.

Talk about arrogance. You want to think you know about relativity but the above shows you are almost completely ignorant of the subject.
See, entanglement involves the instantaneous transfer of specific quantum state information.
If you pause for a moment, you might realize that the speed of light limit applies waves/particles, not information.

Also, the only people that "think we know it all" are straw men generated for internet forum fools to argue with.

Harte

I guess this is on the 'faster than light' topic. What's your take on the implications of the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment? Can you think of any new technologies that may be derived from this knowledge?

originally posted by: yuppa

originally posted by: tarifa37
What happens if you have a ship that can travel at the speed of light and someone from the back of the spaceship walks to the front.. they would now be exceeding the speed of light . So what would happen to them.? because if it's impossible to exceed the speed of light would you be stopped from walking from the back of the spacecraft to the front whilst travelling at the speed of light ?

Umm no. You are still going the same speed because you are inside the ship.

True - this is like a fly in a vehicle traveling 100mph - its flying speed still tops out at about 5mph from the back to the front of the car), but the vehicle its moving in is moving it at 100mph, along with the rest of the vehicle and occupants.

ETA - My intent was to talk thru this with an example I came up with long ago to help me understand it.

So if the vehicle travels 100 miles, the fly has traveled 100mph thru that defined space (point A to point B.) The fly has thus been transported at a rate of 100mph from point A to point B. The additional 3 feet the fly traveled at 5 mph inside the vehicle did not move the fly that additional distance at 105mph, it was at 5mph.

So the fly traveled 100 miles at 100mph plus also traveled 3 feet at 5mph.

Ergo (SWEET! I got to use "ergo!") If a 100 foot long craft with doors at the back and the front traveled 1 light year (~5.88 Trillion miles) at the speed of light, and the occupant walked from the back to the front of the craft by the time the destination was reached, whatever walking speed he reached (let's say 3mph) only applied within that confined space.

If we imagine the craft as being 2.94T miles long (have the distance of the trip) and and occupant could move from the back to the front of the craft at the speed of light. After 6 months, the front end of the craft would be halfway to the destination while the back end would have reached the starting line. The occupant, having found a seat next to the captain, would be halfway to the destination, while the passengers in economy would just be passing the starting line.

There's nowhere further to go, though. Now he waits out the next 6 months and arrives at the destination, 5.88T miles away, in exactly 1 light year, having traveled at the speed of light (5.88T miles per year) despite having traveled at the speed of light within the craft for one year.

So what about the passengers in the back? They have been traveling at the same speed, but they're not yet at the destination because they 're in a row 2.94T miles back. The only reason it takes them more time to get there is because their starting point was further back. They will ultimately travel 1.5 light years in 1.5 years.

The only way to arrive ahead of light speed, would be to get ahead of the craft, which would require traveling faster than the speed of light.

a reply to: tarifa37

What happens if you have a ship that can travel at the speed of light and someone from the back of the spaceship walks to the front.. they would now be exceeding the speed of light .

Actually, no they wouldn't. That is where the speed of light limit becomes really confusing for most people.

Inside the ship, which is traveling at the speed of light (I'm going to write 'c' as an abbreviation for the speed of light hence), the passengers will see no difference than if their spaceship were sitting still (ignoring any acceleration effects; c is velocity, not acceleration). Now, if they looked out the window at two planets, they would see something different. The best way to explain this is to set up a thought experiment:

Person A is onboard a spaceship which is traveling from Planet 1 to Planet 2 (both assumed stationary). Person B is standing on Planet 1, and Person C is standing on Planet 2, both watching the spaceship and Person A. The spaceship leaves Planet A and accelerates to the speed of light. What will each person experience?

Person A will see Planet 1 growing smaller behind him and Planet 2 getting closer in front of him as he accelerates. As he approached c, he will see the distance between Planet 1 and Planet 2 start to contract. As he reaches c, he will see Planet 1 and Planet 2 as flat disks instead of spheres, both in the same place as the other, and anything occurring on the planets will appear to have stopped. In other words, he will not experience any time at c, only time when he is accelerating and decelerating. As he decelerates, the planets both become three dimensional again as well as the distance between them.

Person B on Planet 1 will see the spaceship move away from him as it accelerates. As the spaceship approaches c, it will contract in length and anything that happens aboard it will appear to slow. As it reaches c, it will become 2-dimensional and time aboard the ship will appear to have stopped completely. Once the ship begins deceleration, it will regain its third dimension and will suddenly (instantaneously) appear nearing Planet 2.

Person C on Planet 2 will see something exactly the reverse of Person 1.

The result is that Person A will not notice it requiring the expected time using speed of light calculations for Person A to reach Planet 2. Only Persons A and B will notice that the spaceship appeared to 'vanish' (become two dimensional) during its trip, which took as long as light would be expected to take. If Persons A, B, and C were all to be 25 years old, and the trip were to cover exactly 10 light-years of distance, then discounting acceleration and deceleration time, Person A would still be 25 years old when he reached Planet 2, but Persons A and C would be 35 years old. If Person A were to immediately turn around and return, then he would still be 25 years old upon his return, but Persons B and C would be 45 years old.

There is more affected in spacetime than just mass and velocity when one approaches c. Time slows down and finally stops; a clock ticking would take an infinite amount of time between clicks. Distance in the direction of travel shortens and eventually reaches zero. Mass increases and eventually approaches infinity. All calculations concerning velocity will still agree whatever frame of reference one uses, but expected observations outside of relativity will be changed.

This does not just apply to velocity through space; it also applies to velocity of a gravitational field. The gravitational field of the earth is such that there is a very slight difference in the clock speeds observed aboard a satellite in high orbit and clock speeds on the ground; thus, GPS clock signals have to be adjusted to allow for relativistic effects in order to be accurate. High orbit is not moving relative to us on the ground, but it does have a weaker gravitational field... or one could say that spacetime is moving more slowly around the satellite than it is on the ground.

The confusing part is that observations are not absolute; it all depends on the velocity relative to the observer and any observations are only valid in the reference of the observer. The guy walking toward the front of a spaceship that is traveling at c cannot be observed doing so; he will be observed frozen in time by anyone who can observe the spaceship moving at c. To him, it appears everything else is moving except himself.

TheRedneck

IMHO...FTL propulsion starships would have to be a viable option for any alien star trekkers that occasionally visit our planet; or they wouldn't be able to regularly visit our star system.


Simply put: A superluminal (FTL) capable starship would need an infinite amount of fuel for it to reach the speed of light barrier through "constant acceleration" --- And the only the ways and means to provide that option is photon propulsion, powered by a micro mini black hole onboard the starship.

The micro mini black hole propulsion unit would need to be fed photons from a nearby star source, and exited out it's two polar jets to thrusters at near the speed of light. The MMBH would create it's own magnetic field/fields that surrounds the starship --- mimicking "no rest mass" of a photon --- which would protect the starship from the bad effects of the speed of light barrier and beyond into the superluminal realm.

a reply to: tarifa37

Nothing because they would only be going a couple miles per hour. Now, if they were on the outside of the craft going light speed and started walking, that would be a different story.

Who the hell is the troll that keeps making a new name and getting banned? FFS, take a hint.

Any group traveling the galaxy that is getting close to or surpassing lightspeed must be doing it through wormholes or warp or something other than just going faster.

I say that because the faster they go the more dangerous it is for a catastrophic collision. A ping-pong ball traveling at 99.999% of the speed of light could destroy a planet. A ship traveling that fast wouldn't survive a collision with a piece of space dust.